Hacker News: sjdegraeve

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Show HN: FoodPips – I reverse-engineered a weight loss system and made it free"

sjdegraeve — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 20:25:48 +0000

I lost 15 lbs on a well-known subscription weight loss program, let the subscription lapse, and gained all the weight back. The method works and I'm cheap, so I built my own version.

Every food gets a "pip" value: (calories × 0.0305) + (sat_fat × 0.275) + (sugar × 0.12) − (protein × 0.098). Protein pulls the number down, sugar and saturated fat push it up. Vegetables, fruits, eggs, and lean proteins are always 0 pips so you can eat them freely.

You get a daily pip cap based on your body stats (Mifflin-St Jeor with a 500 calorie deficit). Stay under the pip cap to lose ~1 lb/week.

There's also an analysis page that looks back 90 days and tells you which specific foods are causing your over-cap days. It's often things like rice portions, alcohol, or honey - not necessarily the things you'd expect.

The tech stack is PHP/MySQL because I'm a gray beard and boring old tech still ships.

foodpips.com - free, no subscription, no ads

Show HN: FoodPips – I reverse-engineered a weight loss system and made it free

sjdegraeve — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 20:24:30 +0000

Article URL: https://foodpips.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47868840

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Show HN: Logoshi, a brand kit generator for solo founders"

sjdegraeve — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:43:20 +0000

I rebuilt my old logo generator as a full brand kit generator. You type a business name, pick a style direction, and get a wordmark SVG and PNG in multiple variations, a color palette, font pairings, and a downloadable brand guide PDF. LAMP stack, Stripe, $29 one-time. The core insight was that people don't need a logo, they need enough brand consistency to look credible. Curious what the HN crowd thinks about the positioning and whether $29 one-time is the right model versus subscription.

Show HN: Logoshi, a brand kit generator for solo founders

sjdegraeve — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 16:42:40 +0000

Article URL: https://logoshi.com/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47705904

Points: 5

# Comments: 1

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Deliberately optimizing for harm"

sjdegraeve — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 16:12:53 +0000

Ask HN: Is the Startup Owner's Manual still a relevant guide?

sjdegraeve — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:41:40 +0000

My latest venture has petered out after 8 years and is no longer profitable. I'd like to start something new. Is this book by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf still a good guide in 2021?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29540565

Points: 5

# Comments: 1

New comment by sjdegraeve in "The Final Airbus A380 Has Been Assembled"

sjdegraeve — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 05:24:59 +0000

Google Street View of the interior of an Emirates A380 from 2013:

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.242676,55.3718716,2a,75y,38....

via: https://www.wired.com/2013/08/google-street-view-a380/

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Head asleep, body awake"

sjdegraeve — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 18:40:17 +0000

In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Richard Feynman recounts a similar "drifting" of the location of the ego while in a sensory deprivation tank:

"I tried and after a while I got my ego to go down through my neck into the middle of my chest. When a drop of water came down and hit me on the shoulder, I felt it "up there," above where "I" was. Every time a drop came I was startled a little bit, and my ego would jump back up through the neck to the usual place."

https://pastebin.com/42YhjjYg

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Ask HN: I implemented the life I designed: perfect but I feel lost. What now?"

sjdegraeve — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 20:36:31 +0000

Volunteer in your community.

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?"

sjdegraeve — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 05:01:07 +0000

The Mote in God's Eye (sci-fi, first contact story) helped me accept sudden and drastic changes in my life and the impermanence of the world around me.

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Ask HN: What projects are you working on now?"

sjdegraeve — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 21:52:08 +0000

* #plottertwitter (twitter.com/landscapeartbot)

* a book of thousands of loglines to inspire writers with writer's block

* a vacation itinerary generator (started months ago, completely useless today)

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Ask HN: Recommendations for Working from Home?"

sjdegraeve — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 20:46:20 +0000

I've worked from home since 2009. Here's what has worked for me:

- Have a dedicated work space that can be closed off from the rest of the family / roommates / distractions. Bedrooms / kitchens can only work for so long. A dedicated office at home works best.

- Headphones can act like a chain (in a good way) and keep you productive at your desk.

- Keep strict work hours, 8-5 or whatever. No work communications outside of those times.

- Do not set up your work email or messaging on your phone to further enforce strict work hours and differentiate "work" from "life".

- I found no good way of keeping the casual / social in-person environment alive. The reality is that working from home is often lonely and you lose the casual office chit chat. I have filled that newfound spare time with side projects.

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Show HN: A bookmarklet to remove clickgates on New York Times, Medium, etc."

sjdegraeve — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:31:05 +0000

For those who want a daily concise version of the New York Times, check out https://timesdigest.com/.

It's not free, but I've found it to be a great way to read the NYTimes.

Example of the 10-page daily PDF: https://timesdigest.com/samples/timesdigest

New comment by sjdegraeve in "An oral history of the AIM away message"

sjdegraeve — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 15:15:23 +0000

If you're wondering what people (teen girls) used to put in their away messages, I've been running a site since 2003 that has acted as a database of these "witty profiles".

https://web.archive.org/web/20030416074540/http://www.wittyp...

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Computer Stupidities (2013)"

sjdegraeve — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 00:37:07 +0000

Ah memories. Twenty years ago I worked a few cubicles away from the guy who runs this site. He had a handmade Rube Goldberg machine made from cardboard perched on the edge of his cube wall that accepted coins as payment for candy he kept in a dish.

Ask HN: How do I package up a side project to make it easy to sell?

sjdegraeve — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 04:15:09 +0000

I've been running a side project that's been (ramen) profitable for the last 5 years. I've had interested buyers contact me and I've always turned them away because I was busy trying to build it into a lifestyle business. Another group contacted me today and I'm now at the point where I'd sell it.

Is there a checklist or process I can follow to make this side project easy to package up and sell?

I'm a US citizen living in the US.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18975627

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by sjdegraeve in "AIM will shut down after 20 years"

sjdegraeve — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 16:15:43 +0000

AIM will always hold special place in my heart. It had an ecosystem that allowed me to build two very successful (and profitable) side projects in 2002 and 2003: a Buddy Icon generator and a database of Witty Away Messages for AIM profiles that eventually grew into a little social network. BRB.

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Dmoz closed as of Mar 14, 2017"

sjdegraeve — Thu, 02 Mar 2017 07:18:26 +0000

Website Yellow Pages. Take a look at the categories list for an idea of how sites were cataloged: http://rdf.dmoz.org/rdf/categories.txt

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Show HN: A collection of algorithmic art generated with POV-Ray"

sjdegraeve — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 13:47:24 +0000

The goal is to get the landscapes to resemble sci-fi/fantasy environment concept art. Rough plans include adding clouds, vegetation, buildings, human figures, and foreground elements.

New comment by sjdegraeve in "Show HN: A collection of algorithmic art generated with POV-Ray"

sjdegraeve — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 08:04:20 +0000

... and here I thought the landscape art bot I started yesterday was good. I've got a long way to go. https://twitter.com/LandscapeArtBot